I wouldn't recommend Timber if you are playing at 1250 or over, but for new ELO players with small budgets and small collections, Timber is an affordable and effective way to fill a 5* slot in the right clan. A well made budget preset using Timber can easily get you to 1200 ELO. Timber is underestimated, misunderstood, funloving and full of anger!

Here are some affordable Junkz+Timber presets that can cross 1200 easily:

1 bad card won't keep you from making 1200+ ELO, but make no mistake: Timber is BAD.
At 6 power, he *probably* won't hit -- ELO is full of 8 power, attack manip, and power manip that can take ol' Timber down to a useless 4! Maybe, just maybe you can sneak him in, but let's examine the more common scenario...

Timber does not hit.
However, he contributes 1 extra damage to your entire team.
Let's just say for laughs that all 3 of your non-Timber characters hit... In that case, Timber's contribution to the game is equivalent to that of Lola, or Pegh, or Spiaghi...

A 5* card that will almost always end up playing the role of a 2-3* card is unmistakably bad.

But I think both Timber and Ashigaru are worth considering for low level play in the right presets in this meta. Leaders have a lot of value for clans that don't have a solution designed to handle SOA/ SOB and/ or Protection.

Brother, this is not theory. It is mathematical comparison. One thing is bigger than another. Timber is not as good as 100% of 5* cards commonly used in ELO. He is on par with good 2 and 3 star cards. Mathematically.

How can I make this clear?

Let's pretend that you work for me.
Let's pretend that for some WACKY reason, I offer you your choice of a 50k a year salary and a 100k a year salary. Same responsibilities, obligations, etc -- just two possible salaries, no strings attached.
What you are doing is picking 50k over 100k, and encouraging others to do the same.

That's quite fine -- it's your choice, and maybe you can live perfectly well off the 50, maybe you invest that money intelligently and grow it to an extent that taking 50k extra salary per year barely matters, so... Maybe it "works" for you... But the indisputable fact is that 100 is MORE. Implying anything else is just absurd.

It's true, Timber doesn't always win. He wins maybe 30% of the time you draw him. But he doesn't always need to win. What does he have that Pegh, etc... don't have? Most of the time he needs to be stopped. In fact he needs to be stopped as often as Michael needs to be stopped since they threaten the exact same damage. Which means your opponent needs to pill if they need to stop Timber. That's a big difference.

"What does he have that Pegh, etc... don't have?"
Let's see... 3 more stars that could be put to better use elsewhere? Say, towards high gap cards that "need to be stopped" but have higher power, or some kind of round-winning bonus/ability?

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